The people on that council were no different than a schoolyard bully who poke and prods at a kid until he flies off the handle or breaks down and cries. I'm sure it was very easy for them to declare that he should clean up his property when they were going home to their $200k perfectly manicured mcmansions every night and didn't have a damn thing to worry about. They knew what they were doing and they probably enjoyed every moment of it right up until their easy target stuck a gun in their faces.

If they had minded their own farking business and let the man just live out his life none of this would have happened. Instead, they chose to declare themselves the pretentious shiathead judges of how one should live their live and now they paid the consequences. Bet they wish they would have just left him alone.

gilgigamesh:HotWingConspiracy: According to previous reports, Newell got a building permit from the township to have a storage structure on the property, but then built a dwelling without first getting a zoning permit or certificate of occupancy from the township.

Over the years, authorities have responded to Newell's property as a result of neighbor complaints and on one occasion in 2009 found human fecal matter in buckets there, according to previous reports in the Pocono Record.

The township determined he was improperly disposing of sewage with no septic system or permit for one.

Yeah they totally deserved to die for crossing this asshole.

And it went on for SEVENTEEN YEARS. I love that half or more of the people in this thread are actually defending this crazy fark out of sheer knee jerk reaction.

Note the part where the township "modifies" paperwork after the guy has signed it. And where the state employee gives him false information that gets him into more trouble.

Basically, an old nearly homeless guy buys a piece of property to live in. NY bedroomers, mentioned before, don't like the dirty poor guy making their new McMansions look bad, so they have the township go after him. They finally got him. He didn't have shiat in buckets, he had a compost toilet because he couldn't afford basic services (god forbid they provide them to a guy with almost no income).

So they acted like little Eichmanns and now the chickens have come home to roost.

The guy wasn't hurting anybody. I guess he would've been better off in some homeless shelter with no property or belongings to his name right? Then at least the city folk wouldn't have had to look at him.

Spade:gilgigamesh: HotWingConspiracy: According to previous reports, Newell got a building permit from the township to have a storage structure on the property, but then built a dwelling without first getting a zoning permit or certificate of occupancy from the township.

Over the years, authorities have responded to Newell's property as a result of neighbor complaints and on one occasion in 2009 found human fecal matter in buckets there, according to previous reports in the Pocono Record.

The township determined he was improperly disposing of sewage with no septic system or permit for one.

Yeah they totally deserved to die for crossing this asshole.

And it went on for SEVENTEEN YEARS. I love that half or more of the people in this thread are actually defending this crazy fark out of sheer knee jerk reaction.

This article has more context:http://m.poconorecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130610/NEWS/3 06 100327&template=wapart

Note the part where the township "modifies" paperwork after the guy has signed it. And where the state employee gives him false information that gets him into more trouble.

Basically, an old nearly homeless guy buys a piece of property to live in. NY bedroomers, mentioned before, don't like the dirty poor guy making their new McMansions look bad, so they have the township go after him. They finally got him. He didn't have shiat in buckets, he had a compost toilet because he couldn't afford basic services (god forbid they provide them to a guy with almost no income).

So they acted like little Eichmanns and now the chickens have come home to roost.

The guy wasn't hurting anybody. I guess he would've been better off in some homeless shelter with no property or belongings to his name right? Then at least the city folk wouldn't have had to look at him.

Lesson: Don't be different or they will get you one way or another.

The part that really pissed me off was the drainage culvert. His property was flooding so he wanted to do something about it. He applied for federal aid, received it and hired a contractor to install the culvert and required right of way for emergency vehicles. Then the council decides that it is an environmental threat to the stream. Really? A farking four foot section of pipe is going to absolutely destroy the local ecosystem?

Everything about this story is contrived bullshiat by that council to dig up every single permit and zoning violation they could find to fuel their vendetta against that man. Of course, I'm sure they also made sure that he had easy access to all the information and means he needed to apply for those permits, right? I mean, it's not like they would hide the required paperwork behind arbitrary fees and penalties or lock everything up in subbasement 2C in a file cabinet stuffed in a corner guarded by a rabit bobcat, because that would just be petty. I'm sure the process was almost painfully easy, so long as you were a respected, well connected member of the community that nobody has a personal grudge against.

Those farking people are another perfect example of the busibody, can't mind your own farking business mentality and honestly they got exactly what was coming to them.

I got no beef with a guy who fights city hall, but this guy ignored all rules , permits, and just pretty much did whatever he wanted to do, and fark the consequences. Then after all the time ran out for him to actually DO something to improve his land, get permits, he went on a rampage and killed innocent people just doing their jobs. This is a clear case of "im an asshole, and will do whatever i want. You don't like it? I KILL YOU". fark him, this jackass has no place in polite society, and needs to be put down. Too bad the guy who grabbed his gun didn't shoot him in the head and save the taxpayer the cost of trial and incarceration.

On topic, crazy old dude was living in a shiathole he didn't have permits for. Town had two choices when it was clear he was a crazy old coot without the means or ability to actually fix it himself if the place was that big a problem to the rest of the town, hold a barn raising and build him a new actually decent place to live and try to take care of him in his declining years, or try to force him off 'his' land. One of those choices was moderately expensive and took effort, the other was crazy-old-coot-last-straw and ended up with a couple people dead and 5 more shot and wounded.

We don't teach that to kids at all and now, that Mr. Rogers is dead, there's no where to even stumble across it.(yeah, I know, but they're the older nicer ones so they don't count *sarcasm*)Nobody dislikes anything anymore - we "Hate" itOnly violence solves problems - from Powerpuff Girls to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles kids don't know there is an alternate path to resolution. Peaceful Resolution is just not in their skill set and seems like an alien concept to them.Our evening news is no help either, only a smallish thirty second bow to sanity at the end of each newscast which is easily dismissible as pandering to "weaklings".

This person, this shooter is of an age that he's grown up with television and so he has a "modern view" of the world, one that's been mediated by corporations. There's enormous amounts of money to be made by cultivating fear among the populace. Rush, Glen, Sarah, Ann all understand this and because of it they teeter on the edge of racism and fear mongering,Dividing us up as either have's or have more's afraid of the have not's. Which is plainly decipherable as white vs non-white, native vs non-native, rich vs poor.

This is not the only problem though it's a huge one. Another issue that feeds into this is the "I'm so busy and resolution takes time to achieve so . . . "Shut the f*ck up" is a quick method to dismiss anyone else's opposing view.It's taken me a good deal of time to write this but, for me, this is a very important topic this lack of desire for Conflict Resolution.I have a kid, I want her to grow and enjoy the best that's possible in this world and you can't do that if you're in a coffin.

As bad as it is now, it will only get worse because there is nothing to stop it.Similar to "The Guns of Will Sonnet", no lie, just fact.

HotWingConspiracy:LasersHurt: KrispyKritter: Wish i had the balls the Link land owner does.

You wish you had the balls to kill innocent people, eh?

StrangeQ: honestly they got exactly what was coming to them.

Has everyone lost their farking minds or what

Of course they have, they're on a steady diet of right wing gun nut culture. All of them are just itching for a fight like this. They'll see it as righteous justice when they shoot down unarmed people because of some perceived slight from the gummermint.

Oddly enough, if you read the guy's facebook page...he wasn't right wing. Well, except on guns.

In other words, he was the kind of guy who probably thought government was supposed to be there to <i>help</i> him. Not steal his land and run him out of town at gunpoint. You can see why he felt betrayed.

Wish i had the balls the Link land owner does. My Mom's house where I was raised, along with 4 neighbors houses are months away from being unsellable and devalued (yet their taxes will not go down) thanks to the town council members wisdom.Those 5 houses are on a short hilly street. In the back yards is a fence running perpendicular to the street; on the other side a large property which was a car dealership some 60 years. This is on highway frontage. A convenience store / gas pumping franchise proposed a mega site on the car dealership property larger than any other on that highway in any town. They wish to operate 24 hours a day.They propose to replace the current 6' wood fence with a massive brick wall. Because of the current laws in NJ the adjacent 5 homes on the hilly street can no longer be sold. The current owners will have to do whatever they have to do, tough luck too bad, just keep paying your taxes on homes that will no longer be worth what they are this very minute, and they will be stuck with them.The town council was swayed heavily by the convenience store franchise making promises to donate big bucks to the local public schools football fields, because hey, that's what really matters.Meanwhile my Mom and her neighbors have racked up incredible Lawyer debt trying to defend themselves. Mom is 82, in poor health, in a wheelchair and requires around the clock attendance and help.Our family lived there over 50 years. It's just a matter of short time before there will be non-stop customer noise, smells of gas deliveries and a huge brick wall taking over an entire owner-locked block.Personally, I think this is worth thinking about locking and loading for.

Spade:Maybe the government shouldn't have tried to run a guy off his land through an expensive regulatory scheme?

Small town in NEPA so you can assume it is corrupt as hell.

According to previous reports, Newell got a building permit from the township to have a storage structure on the property, but then built a dwelling without first getting a zoning permit or certificate of occupancy from the township.

Over the years, authorities have responded to Newell's property as a result of neighbor complaints and on one occasion in 2009 found human fecal matter in buckets there, according to previous reports in the Pocono Record.

The township determined he was improperly disposing of sewage with no septic system or permit for one.

Pocket Ninja:I wonder how long it will be before somebody points out that if everybody in the town meeting had been armed, this wouldn't have happened.

Actually, someone *DID* use a gun to stop him:

The shooter returned to his car and came back inside with another weapon when a local official at the meeting grabbed him, Reber said."(West End Open Space Commission executive director) Bernie Kozen was there tending to the man and he (the shooter) didn't see them," Reber said. "Bernie bearhugged him and took him down. He shot (the shooter) with his own gun."

Nope. He had 18 years to get that property in order. Did you look at any of the pictures out there of the property? Evidently his idea of improvements was getting a dog house for an empty propane tank. Eighteen years and all he did was cover his land with junk, trash, and bodily waste.

Ed Grubermann:dittybopper:According to him, he has a composting toilet, which is a sanitation system.

And yet, there were complaints of buckets of human waste on his property.

Did you not read the post where I said it could be a case where both are correct: There are portable composting toilets that use 5 gallon buckets for waste collection, for use in a compost pile.

Apparently, you take your dump, cover the material with 6" of compost like sawdust or other like material, and repeat. When the bucket is full, you empty it into the compost heap. The action of heat from decomposition kills the pathogens in the feces, so by the time it's ready for use, it's perfectly safe.

Now, this guy may or may not have been doing that, but it's not totally out of the question that it might be safe and relatively sanitary to use buckets for that.

/Wouldn't do that myself.//Would dig a nice, big pit latrine and let nature to the work for me.

PunGent:CreampuffCasperMilktoast: So pretty much the shooter will now get free food, healthcare, shelter, television, education, and more. Take note Baby Boomers, not a bad retirement plan right?

Nutraloaf, an alcoholic EMT, a roach-infested cell, whatever Bubba wants to watch on basic cable, and a used Bible are no way to go through life, son...

The Monroe County Correctional Facility, a peaceful rural setting, with an extremely sanitary kitchen that was run by Aramark, and recently replaced by a competitor which apparently has made people happier, since there is a new menu and larger portions. They've hired a private health care firm, which "either meets or exceeds standards." http://www.privateci.org/pennsylvania.htm .....evidently the women have a decent choir http://www.youtube.com/wa tch?v=hV2gJOpf51o ...and let's face it, older folks such as the shooter might like a little more physical contact, perhaps even love from Bubba could make him feel special.

Satanic_Hamster:LasersHurt: dittybopper: durbnpoisn: The flaw in your argument lies in the fact that he had no problem affording the weapons and ammunition.

So, yeah, because he could afford to spend a couple hundred bucks for some guns that he likely bought decades ago, he can afford to put in a $40,000 septic system.

Jesus christ what does a septic system cost where you live holy shiat...

While I am sympathetic to this guy too, he had many many many years to try to improve things, too.

At my work place we just put in three septic systems. Total cost was maybe 24-30 grand.

Price here in Mass. varies considerably...I've seen residential property on Cape Cod that's at least $40k for septic, because it's hard to get the sandy soil to perc test properly. This guy here, if he's far enough in the boonies, could've also been expensive because you might have to haul in equipment, etc.

dittybopper:Nina_Hartley's_Ass: Shooting up a town meeting does not lend credibility to a claim of mistreatment.

Well, at that point, what did he really have to lose?

Seems to me, in the final analysis, this guy just wanted to be left alone. He was pushing sixty years old, unable to work and on a fixed income. How many years did he have left? Ten, maybe fifteen? The situation was going to resolve itself eventually. It's not like the guy was in his mid-30s.

Still no excuse for killing people.

Hey, I'm the same age as he is and I'd like to be left alone, too. I have three properties I own and manage. I'm not rich. I don't own more than I can afford to own. If my septic system goes belly up I have to get a new one or I can't live here anymore. Seriously, people biatching constantly about people getting mortgages for houses they can't afford are now biatching because people don't understand that laws don't discriminate based on whims and eccentricities. I swear, most of you who are complaining are either renting or living in mom's basement and have no idea how property ownership works.

The guy SAYS he had a composting toilet, but even if he does, if he didn't get a permit for it, it has to go. It has to be inspected and verified. It is your responsibility to know what you need to get permits for and what you don't. They found buckets of shiat at his house, you don't let buckets of shiat sit around before you put them in the composter, that's not how it works. So what if they were 5 gallon buckets? The county said they were raw sewage. And "falsified" the documents? They didn't falsify them, you can NOT live in what local governments call "sheds." It is NOT legal. There is a legal definition for a shed, and it is NOT to be used a dwelling. If you want to convert a shed to a dwelling, you need to get permits for water, septic, electricity and so on and then build to code.

I'm fascinated by the people in this thread who are are mooning over this guy as though he were some hybrid of Samuel Adams and one of the kids from One Direction. If his name had be D'Tyreke Newell, those same people would be screaming about irresponsible people buying what they can't afford.

He wanted a place to live and I get that, but he didn't think about the maintenance cost of owning shiat. Once he started fighting with what sounds like a vindictive Town government (over what appears to be trying to build a dwelling under storage unit codes to save $), it just escalated. He got hosed by DEP, sure, but that was icing on the cake. He was behind on his taxes, and regardless of his pooping situation, he was continuing to use his land as a dumping site.

There's no good guys here, and just because someone happens to be near Town hall during a public meeting doesn't make them a bad guy.

redmid17:No for sure it's fine as a one-off. I was posting in context of continued habitation of the aforementioned property. I don't know anyone who's installed a composting toilet to go camping in the woods.

Frizbone:This proves that in this country, it is ILLEGAL to be poor. It is even MORE ILLEGAL to be a poor property owner because the elites will harass, intimidate and bully you into submission.

No, it shows that it's illegal to buy a piece of property, lie to the government that you're building a business there and instead build a "home", then spend 18 years saying you're above basic zoning laws.

redmid17:Outrageous Muff: redmid17: No. He was wrong to shoot the people nor do I understand. It seems like the town is grinding their axe to an douchetastic extent.

How dare a local government so swiftly condemn the man's Sh*t Shack, I was going to say sh*thole but it appears he wasn't smart enough to dig a hole to bury his own sh*t, after 18 years! Fight the government, man!

He has/had a composting toilet. Since you are ill-equipped to look that up, here's a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composting_toilet

And yes they are legal in PA.

No. He *CLAIMED* he has/had a composting toilet.

He also felt shooting randomly through a wall where he held a grievance with *some* of the people in attendance (unless literally everyone in the town was conspiring against him?) was an alright method of conflict resolution.

redmid17:Context is a difficult thing to see, but we are talking about a space where people live and a long-term occupation of said land. Pissing in the woods or shiatting and wiping with a leaf is fine when you're camping. It's not when you have to worry about water sanitation and other local regulations.

This is the context we are talking about, a largely uninhabited wooded area that is in a valley and lower than all the other homes in the area:

redmid17:Wow you are almost as bad as Whidbey, but your reading comprehension is far, far worse.

So far you've done nothing but support the argument of the murderer that the government didn't have the right to demand he clean up his property and follow the law in the township that says if you have a residential structure you need a septic system.

I think a guy crazy enough to shoot up a town hall is also crazy enough to shiat in a bucket and claim it was a composting toilet.

I want to know what the neighbor complaints were about. Did he threaten them, did he shoot guns onto their property, was there a far-reaching smell? Or were they just complaining about his shack harming their home price? Since the guy is provably crazy, I'm inclined to give the neighbors and town council the benefit of the doubt.

dittybopper:redmid17: dittybopper: redmid17: /don't shiat and bury it in the ground//that's gross. use a sanitary alternative

Actually, that *IS* a sanitary alternative when done correctly. And it's not hard to do correctly.

A composting toilet would be a sanitary alternative. I meant don't literally dig only a hole to shiat it and then cover it up. That's gross.

Depends on how deep the hole is. Nature can take care of it quite well if you dig a decent pit, and make sure to cover it afterwards. As I recall from my camping days, a 6" hole was adequate for a single "session". You obviously don't want to do it right next to a water source, though.

redmid17:dittybopper: redmid17: /don't shiat and bury it in the ground//that's gross. use a sanitary alternative

Actually, that *IS* a sanitary alternative when done correctly. And it's not hard to do correctly.

A composting toilet would be a sanitary alternative. I meant don't literally dig only a hole to shiat it and then cover it up. That's gross.

Depends on how deep the hole is. Nature can take care of it quite well if you dig a decent pit, and make sure to cover it afterwards. As I recall from my camping days, a 6" hole was adequate for a single "session". You obviously don't want to do it right next to a water source, though.

Lady J:StrangeQ: monoski: dittybopper: durbnpoisn: The flaw in your argument lies in the fact that he had no problem affording the weapons and ammunition.

So, yeah, because he could afford to spend a couple hundred bucks for some guns that he likely bought decades ago, he can afford to put in a $40,000 septic system.

Money or not, you cannot just crap in buckets and dump it around your property. It is a health hazard to anyone who lives downstream from the home.

So bury it in the ground, problem solved. Why is it that bears, deer, rabbits and raccoons can shiat in the woods, but when it human does it suddenly becomes a biological hazard?

a) because we're meat eatersb) we're not cool with a big parasite load, like wild animals are

You missed an important part.

Outhouses, while frowned upon these days, were an appropriate solution to the problem, as are composting toilets today. The murderer in question claims he had a composting toilet, and that the "feces in a bucket" thing was, pardon the expression, crap:

Now, maybe the guy was lying, maybe the town was lying. Either way, it would have been possible to work with him to come up with a way to satisfy both the need for adequate sanitation within his low fixed income. It doesn't sound like they wanted to do that.

As I've said, that's no reason to kill innocent people (or even the not-so-innocent), but it does seem as if he was backed into a corner from which he had very few options. At the end, he was living in his 1984 Pontiac Fiero, which seems cruel and inhuman.

dittybopper:monoski: dittybopper: durbnpoisn: The flaw in your argument lies in the fact that he had no problem affording the weapons and ammunition.

So, yeah, because he could afford to spend a couple hundred bucks for some guns that he likely bought decades ago, he can afford to put in a $40,000 septic system.

Money or not, you cannot just crap in buckets and dump it around your property. It is a health hazard to anyone who lives downstream from the home.

You don't know he did that. He claims he had a composting toilet. That's a completely legit way to handle human waste, and you don't know that he was dumping it around his property. Not even the town made that claim.

And you don't know he had a composting toilet, though I don't understand why the reporter didn't find out who was in the right about that particular dispute.

Outrageous Muff:redmid17: No. He was wrong to shoot the people nor do I understand. It seems like the town is grinding their axe to an douchetastic extent.

How dare a local government so swiftly condemn the man's Sh*t Shack, I was going to say sh*thole but it appears he wasn't smart enough to dig a hole to bury his own sh*t, after 18 years! Fight the government, man!

monoski:dittybopper: durbnpoisn: The flaw in your argument lies in the fact that he had no problem affording the weapons and ammunition.

So, yeah, because he could afford to spend a couple hundred bucks for some guns that he likely bought decades ago, he can afford to put in a $40,000 septic system.

Money or not, you cannot just crap in buckets and dump it around your property. It is a health hazard to anyone who lives downstream from the home.

You don't know he did that. He claims he had a composting toilet. That's a completely legit way to handle human waste, and you don't know that he was dumping it around his property. Not even the town made that claim.

Gee, that's odd. Why would a person who lived in a place with (I assume) no electricity, water, or copper phone lines chose to use a cell phone? That just seems wrong, he should have purchased a wired sound-powered field telephone from the local Army/Navy surplus store or something.

Come on. He bought things, he had a monthly disability income. You aren't allowed to live in a farking shed with no sanitation system, I don't care where it is.

According to him, he has a composting toilet, which is a sanitation system.

In fact, had he a couple of campers on his property. If he lived in them, they probably couldn't have done anything about it. In fact, I think that's why he was allowed to remain, because they couldn't prove he was living in the shack itself until he told them that's where he lived.

dittybopper:OK, so I took a look on Google Earth of this guy's property.

It's completely wooded, on a section of road that has at most one other home on it. It's in a deep valley also, so the chances of him getting a lot of other neighbors are fairly slim.

Seems to me this guy's only real crime prior to committing murder* is "living off the grid" on the cheap. And yeah, his place is a dump, but it can hardly be considered an eyesore because you can't really see it unless you go up his driveway.

*Make no mistake, I may be sympathetic to his plight home-wise, but that's not an excuse to kill people indiscriminately.

Living off the grid? Dude had an iPhone. Come on. He bought things, he had a monthly disability income. You aren't allowed to live in a farking shed with no sanitation system, I don't care where it is. The culvert he built was not to code, he didn't bother to even check with the county because he claims FEMA told him he didn't have to, something FEMA said they never told him. The dude is nuts and paranoid. I lived next to a little old lady who was mentally challenged and hoarded, she used to drag everyone's trash in her yard and the rats were everywhere. The health department can and does have the right to condemn a property if you don't follow laws.

It's completely wooded, on a section of road that has at most one other home on it. It's in a deep valley also, so the chances of him getting a lot of other neighbors are fairly slim.

Seems to me this guy's only real crime prior to committing murder* is "living off the grid" on the cheap. And yeah, his place is a dump, but it can hardly be considered an eyesore because you can't really see it unless you go up his driveway.

*Make no mistake, I may be sympathetic to his plight home-wise, but that's not an excuse to kill people indiscriminately.

Bit'O'Gristle:I got no beef with a guy who fights city hall, but this guy ignored all rules , permits, and just pretty much did whatever he wanted to do, and fark the consequences. Then after all the time ran out for him to actually DO something to improve his land, get permits, he went on a rampage and killed innocent people just doing their jobs. This is a clear case of "im an asshole, and will do whatever i want. You don't like it? I KILL YOU". fark him, this jackass has no place in polite society, and needs to be put down. Too bad the guy who grabbed his gun didn't shoot him in the head and save the taxpayer the cost of trial and incarceration.

Actually, this is what the Right thinks of that song:This land is my land, it is not your landI got a shotgun, and you ain't got noneIf you don't get off, I'll call the sheriffThis land is private property

Spade:gilgigamesh: HotWingConspiracy: According to previous reports, Newell got a building permit from the township to have a storage structure on the property, but then built a dwelling without first getting a zoning permit or certificate of occupancy from the township.

Over the years, authorities have responded to Newell's property as a result of neighbor complaints and on one occasion in 2009 found human fecal matter in buckets there, according to previous reports in the Pocono Record.

The township determined he was improperly disposing of sewage with no septic system or permit for one.

Yeah they totally deserved to die for crossing this asshole.

And it went on for SEVENTEEN YEARS. I love that half or more of the people in this thread are actually defending this crazy fark out of sheer knee jerk reaction.

This article has more context:http://m.poconorecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130610/NEWS/3 06 100327&template=wapart

Note the part where the township "modifies" paperwork after the guy has signed it. And where the state employee gives him false information that gets him into more trouble.

Basically, an old nearly homeless guy buys a piece of property to live in. NY bedroomers, mentioned before, don't like the dirty poor guy making their new McMansions look bad, so they have the township go after him. They finally got him. He didn't have shiat in buckets, he had a compost toilet because he couldn't afford basic services (god forbid they provide them to a guy with almost no income).

So they acted like little Eichmanns and now the chickens have come home to roost.

The guy wasn't hurting anybody. I guess he would've been better off in some homeless shelter with no property or belongings to his name right? Then at least the city folk wouldn't have had to look at him.

Lesson: Don't be different or they will get you one way or another.

Well, aside from the fact that you're almost completely wrong, this is a good post. Where the guy lives, there are no McMansions.

And you aren't allowed to ignore the laws you don't like. You can't build a huge Castle in a residential neighborhood and you can't put up a Wal Mart in your back yard and you can't live in squalor in an area that doesn't allow it.

* Even anti-gun Clinton researchers concede that guns are used 1.5 million times annually for self-defense. According to the Clinton Justice Department, there are as many as 1.5 million cases of self-defense every year. The National Institute of Justice published this figure in 1997 as part of "Guns in America" -- a study which was authored by noted anti-gun criminologists Philip Cook and Jens Ludwig.5* Armed citizens kill more crooks than do the police. Citizens shoot and kill at least twice as many criminals as police do every year (1,527 to 606).6 And readers of Newsweek learned that "only 2 percent of civilian shootings involved an innocent person mistakenly identified as a criminal. The 'error rate' for the police, however, was 11 percent, more than five times as high."7* Handguns are the weapon of choice for self-defense. Citizens use handguns to protect themselves over 1.9 million times a year.

Spade: One of the way government farks the little guy is by making the process so expensive that only the wealthy can afford it. Oh, you want that culvert and we don't even want you here? Well, you need local permits, a permit from DEP, and permit from Fish and Boat, an engineering study, an ecological impact study, a water study from the Army Corps of Engineers, and a fully laid out plan.Oh, you can't afford that? Sucks to be you.

Yep. If you're not rich and well connected you have no rights. Welcome to America.

WTF Indeed:StrangeQ: The people on that council were no different than a schoolyard bully who poke and prods at a kid until he flies off the handle or breaks down and cries. I'm sure it was very easy for them to declare that he should clean up his property when they were going home to their $200k perfectly manicured mcmansions every night and didn't have a damn thing to worry about. They knew what they were doing and they probably enjoyed every moment of it right up until their easy target stuck a gun in their faces.

If they had minded their own farking business and let the man just live out his life none of this would have happened. Instead, they chose to declare themselves the pretentious shiathead judges of how one should live their live and now they paid the consequences. Bet they wish they would have just left him alone.

Fark em.

I hope one day someone you know is murdered by someone like this.

I hope if one day I know someone acting that way I will have the good sense to slap them in their face and tell them to quit being an asshole before they get their stupid ass shot.

No, actually, they weren't wrong. I DNRTA, but I watched the news this morning. Did you see what that guy's property looked like. The council in question was WELL within their jurisdiction to have that property condemned. If he could take the time to go and shoot a bunch of people up, he could have taken the time to clean his damn property - maybe even have a septic system installed.

This is America. No, I'm being serious here. We have to let people be free to do with their property what they want. If somebody wants to camp out on their own land or live in an RV or a tent with no running water and use a latrine, who are we to insist that they conform to our idea of a proper way of life? Septic systems can cost thousands of dollars, but that's not the only way to accomplish the same thing.

If somebody has a plot of land outside of town with a well and a septic system, should the city be able to grow and come to that person's property and then insist that they hook into the municipal water and sewer system at a cost of thousands of dollars, whether they want it or not?

There is a strong vein of "criminalizing poverty" that I see in these sorts of government actions. "We don't like "different", everybody has to be the same." Look at the problems that urban farmers fun into, or even non-urban farmers when the county board of supervisors gets a bunch of HOA-type drones elected to it.

The proper analysis should have been "Is this really a problem, or does it just offend our delicate sensibilities that somebody lives like this? Do we actually want to do the humane thing and try to find a way to help resolve the problem, if one really exists? Or do we want to make the icky thing that makes us uncomfortable go away, cloaking our actions in terms of "safety" or "due process?"

Frizbone:People can't just mind their own farking business and they have to stick their nose into other people's business. This was the result of the Gladys Kravitz mentality of yuppies today who cannot stand other peoples' lifestyle. This guy is a martyr. the ones shot....oh well...

I am totally moving next door to you. And the poop buckets are going under your bedroom window.

LowbrowDeluxe:On topic, crazy old dude was living in a shiathole he didn't have permits for. Town had two choices when it was clear he was a crazy old coot without the means or ability to actually fix it himself if the place was that big a problem to the rest of the town, hold a barn raising and build him a new actually decent place to live and try to take care of him in his declining years, or try to force him off 'his' land. One of those choices was moderately expensive and took effort, the other was crazy-old-coot-last-straw and ended up with a couple people dead and 5 more shot and wounded.

This. The law and due process are not magical forcefields that protect you from the consequences of your actions. Just because a government can roll over somebody without technically breaking the law doesn't make it "right". Sometimes showing a bit of humanity and compassion is called for. Down at the level of dealing with people, a certain amount of flexibility is called for. This didn't happen out of the blue; this was a cascade falilure where lots of people made sub-optimal choices.

HotWingConspiracy:According to previous reports, Newell got a building permit from the township to have a storage structure on the property, but then built a dwelling without first getting a zoning permit or certificate of occupancy from the township.

Over the years, authorities have responded to Newell's property as a result of neighbor complaints and on one occasion in 2009 found human fecal matter in buckets there, according to previous reports in the Pocono Record.

The township determined he was improperly disposing of sewage with no septic system or permit for one.

Yeah they totally deserved to die for crossing this asshole.

And it went on for SEVENTEEN YEARS. I love that half or more of the people in this thread are actually defending this crazy fark out of sheer knee jerk reaction.

He needed to get out of Monroe County -- the fastest-growing county in the state because it's becoming a bedroom community for New York City and Philadelphia -- and get up to the "Big T" part of the state where pooping in a bucket makes you "uppity and highfalutin'"

dittybopper:monoski: SmackLT: So subby, you're saying that the town commissioners shouldn't have given this man the opportunity to discuss a dispute with them? Just roll right over the little guy without recourse? Seems harsh to me.

I think you are a little short on the underlying facts like the article. Properties are not condemned overnight, there is a process.

That's true, but in all honesty, it's only a process you can effectively counter if you have the money to fight it, and people who do have the money to fight it generally don't end up getting their property condemned for cause (as opposed to eminent domain condemnations).

So, if you don't have the money to fix up your place to begin with, it's not very likely that you'll have the money to effectively fight a condemnation proceeding by the town. Especially if you've pissed off the town board by being a cantankerous old cuss who just wants to be left alone.

Look up this dudes house. It is a total disaster. This does not appear to be eminent domain but one of public safety but I do appreciate where you are coming from, local govts have screwed people out of their home.

So subby, you're saying that the town commissioners shouldn't have given this man the opportunity to discuss a dispute with them? Just roll right over the little guy without recourse? Seems harsh to me.